I expected to be outside my comfort zone and I got that in spades, probably more than I expected. For the first couple of weeks of the season, I had trouble falling asleep after games because I re-hash all the things I got wrong. They weren’t big things, but it was uncomfortable not getting things right. It’s better now and I don’t have any trouble sleeping.
The experience has been simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar.
In my work life, I’m a woman POC in technology and I lead teams. I’ve always had to deal with unconscious bias and being the “only” in the room. That experience has served me well. I’m the only woman coach in our division. I haven’t met any other women coaches.
Being a coach who doesn’t play hockey is a lot like being a mid-level manager who doesn’t have the skill to be an individual contributor. It’s not so different from being a mid-level manager. I have to over-communicate with my peers to build relationships and present a vision for the team. My assistant coaches didn’t know what to make of me at first. They didn’t have any template for someone like me, so they didn’t know which way to jump. I hope they’re used to me now. I ask a lot of questions. I try get their input, though they don’t have a lot to say.
What has been unfamiliar are the practices and the kids.
During the on-ice practices, some of the coaches have been lovely and gave me things to do. Other times, I wander around aimlessly. I feel like I’m most helpful in trying to get things to go smoothly. I collect up pucks. I visit different drill stations and provide small bits of encouragement.
The kids are like space aliens to me. Although, one of them is my son, I feel like I don’t have a good mental model for their hearts and heads. When I talk to them on the ice, they give me strange looks. It’s like they’re here for the hockey, not chit chat. Most kids follow my instructions, because I’m an adult and they’ve been programmed to do that. A few of the select players don’t really respect me. They are slow to follow instructions and don’t make eye contact with me when I’m talking to them. I still need to win them over.
Whatever the struggles on my part, the team has a record of 4-1-1. The team will continue to be happy for as long as we’re winning. I don’t know how viable this is as a long term strategy, but that’s where we are in week 6.
Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance. I’ve seen a lot of stories come across my social media feed this week. One of the observations was that if you don’t know any trans people, it’s probably because they don’t feel safe around you. That seems right.
I want to share with you a couple of my experiences in providing safety: one time I got it right and one time I fucked up. I realize that Transgender Day of Remembrance isn’t about me. It’s about those we’ve lost or harmed. As an ally, I’d like to add my voice to the chorus, so there aren’t so many losses.
When I lived in California, I attended a church that was “open and affirming,” which meant that we welcomed lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) members. We didn’t have a test of faith for membership or even tithing requirements. It was a progressive church and it’s where I learned to protest– against the war in Iraq, for Obamacare, for gay marriage– you name it. It was a comfortable moral and spiritual home for me. It wasn’t perfect, for example, on race issues, but it fed me emotionally and I needed that.
There was a young trans woman in our congregation. She joined before she started transitioning, so there was a before and an after. Let’s call her Chelsea. Her family had disowned her. She worked in a technical field, but the environment wasn’t great. She was on her own.
The church had an annual women’s retreat, where the women of the church went to a camp in the mountains for a weekend. (I don’t really know what the rest of the congregation did while we were gone. I never got to see it.) We sang, prayed, mediated, walked, talked, and ate. There’s an amazing labyrinth on the grounds for moving meditation. It was a lovely time and in two days, it we did feel like we were getting away.
On the Saturday afternoon, we were having a sharing circle. The retreat leader had given us an exercise and we were discussing our responses. Honestly, I don’t even remember the activity. We were nearly done the session when Chelsea started to cry. It started quietly, but got to the level of noisy sniffling. No ugly crying.
It was hard to know what to do. Was it something we did or said? None of us were really close to Chelsea. I was easily 10+ years older than her and the rest were even older.
When I get nervous, I tend to get quiet. I went and sat next to Chelsea. I think I touched her on the arm or shoulder. We communicated a lot with our eyes.
“Happy tears,” she said and I understood. This was her first women’s retreat. She came and she was treated the same as any other participant. The night before, we wore pyjamas together. Nobody questioned whether she should be there. She wasn’t silenced or ignored.
I’m proud of the safety that we provided Chelsea, not just that weekend, but also after. She eventually formed a chosen family with church members. When Chelsea had her gender-affirming surgery, a woman from the retreat went with her. My part in this was tiny and it wasn’t hard. But it meant a lot to someone who had experienced a lot of rejection.
So, let me tell you about a time when I didn’t make it safe for a trans man.
Several years ago in Toronto, I was teaching an undergraduate class in computer science where students had to work in teams. From my own experience, I knew that it was miserable being the only woman in a group. So when I formed groups, I made sure that there were at least two women in each group. Groups with only men were unavoidable and acceptable. To achieve this distribution, I had students fill out a form that asked a bunch of questions, including gender.
When it came time to create this groups, I didn’t have forms for every student. They could have missed the class or just neglected to fill out the form. I sometimes had to check the university database of student records or even LinkedIn. Having pronouns in your profile was not common then, so it wasn’t that helpful.
I had one particular student who answered “male” on the form that I provided. Let’s call him Tom. But in his university record, his sex was “female.” He presented as male on his LinkedIn profile. I placed him in a group as a male.
At the end of the next class, Tom came up to me and asked why I was looking at his LinkedIn profile. He was friendly and not confrontational. I said that I was trying to confirm gender for creating the groups and I was confused by the university records. You can see where this is going.
Tom was taken aback and said that it was a ridiculous mistake on the university records. I commiserated.
Later, he sent me an email. He was trans man. Although he was comfortable with his status, he told me that I should be more careful about outing people. I had a sick feeling in my stomach. He was absolutely right and I apologised.
This was a good lesson for me. I was trying to solve a problem for women and it didn’t even cross my mind how my solution would scale to transgender individuals. I think if I were doing this again, I’d be more explicit about my intentions to handle inequality and get students to help me arrive at the solution. It’s patronizing and infantilizing to do otherwise.
The second occasion happened after the first, so it’s not like I didn’t know what good looked like.
On this Transgender Day of Remembrance, I’m thinking of you, Chelsea, Tom, Tami, Hunter, Alex, Veronika, and June. Thanks for the lessons that you taught me and are teaching me about how to be a better person. I’ll still get things wrong, like pronouns and anti-oppression, but you have my support.
It’s a process and here’s what I commit to do. Be humble. Educate myself. Listen. Do my best. Expect to get things wrong. Ask for forgiveness. Accept feedback.
We are heading into our fifth weekend of the hockey season. It’s been good to see hockey legs start to come back and new skills being polished. We have a couple of requests for the parents, so our game nights run more smoothly.
1. Keep TeamSnap up to date with your child’s availability. We use this information when assigning kids to positions for a game. If something comes up at the last minute, you can send a message through TeamSnap.
2. Be dressed and ready to go 15 minutes before a game. We need the time before the game to familiarize the kids with their lines and talk about how they are going to play their positions. As well, the team will be able to make the most of the warm up time on ice before the game starts.
3. Finally, we have a general request, not just for game nights. We’d like to work towards players getting dressed and undressed independently, with the exception of tying their skates. We’ve seen the players being kind and helping each other in the dressing room, so this is an opportunity for learning and team building.
Thank you so much for your support, as always. We wouldn’t have much of a team without the families behind the players. If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know. Looking forward to seeing you this weekend.
After serving as campaign manager in two elections that were defined by historically low voter turnout, I’m surprised as anyone that the Ontario government did a complete U-turn in response to the threat of a general strike.
At the same time, once Premier Ford and Minister Lecce preemptively used the notwithstanding clause, this was the only way that it could end.
When Bill 28 was read in the Ontario legislature last Monday, it was clear that this was where we were headed. To recap, Bill 28 used Section 33 (the “notwithstanding clause”) in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to take away one union‘s right to strike.
People started paying attention– 80% were aware according to a poll and support for the union was over 60%. If education workers could lose their Charter rights, then anyone could lose their rights.
If one union could be targeted, then any union could be targeted. So unions started lining up for a general strike. At a press conference yesterday morning, leaders representing millions of workers were pledging their support.
A general strike occurs when multiple unions, or even individuals not in unions, across multiple sectors withhold their labour in solidarity with each other.
There was only one significant general strike in Canadian history, so it’s instructive to look at why that one failed (in the short term), but the threat of a general strike worked this time. There are a lot of similarities between the two contexts.
Winnipeg General Strike, 1919
The strike occurred from 15 May to 25 June. Fifty unions and almost every worker in the city participated. At the time, Winnipeg, Manitoba was the third largest city in the country with a population of 179,000. The strike spanned both private sector (factories, retail, and trains) and public sector (fire, police, postal, and telecommunications).
City leaders, the federal government, and newspapers worked together to oppose the strike. They demonized workers and labeled the strike as a revolutionary plot from Eastern Europe. Union leaders and members were arrested. On Bloody Saturday (June 21), police mounted on horseback charged protesters, beat them with clubs, and fired revolvers in the crowed. Thirty were injured and two died.
There are a number of similarities between 1919 and today. Inflation was high and people were finding it difficult to afford housing and food. Our unemployment rate today is numerically higher, but then there was greater unease and no gig economy.
“After the First World War, many Canadian workers struggled to make ends meet while employers prospered. Unemployment was high, and there were few jobs for veterans returning from war. Due to inflation, housing and food were hard to afford. Among the hardest hit in Winnipeg were working-class immigrants.”
Average education worker salary: $39,000 MPP salary: $116,500-$165,850
Unfortunately, the strike failed in the short term. The action ended with no concessions and lots of penalties. However, it was a watershed moment for Canadian labour. They had won the hearts and minds of the public. One of the leaders, J.S. Woodsworth, went on to form the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), which is a forerunner of today’s New Democratic Party (NDP).
Why did Ontario, 2022 succeed?
Single-factor explanations are rarely sufficient to explain a complex phenomenon, such as a U-turn in government policy. From the outset, the Ford government held all the cards. They had a majority in the legislature, so they could pass any bill they wanted. The voter turnout in the June election was only 43.5%, so citizens were disengaged. It was early in the mandate, any sins would be largely forgotten over the next four years.
Rights, not dollars
As I mentioned last week, neither side smells like roses at the end of a fraught labour negotiation. Consequently, the general public, who is usually not paying close attention, has trouble figuring out who is the protagonist and who is the antagonist.
But the use of the notwithstanding clause changed the calculus. “Should people have the freedom of association?” is a much easier question to answer than “do these workers deserve an 11% pay increase?”
Organization before demonstration
In the days before social media, significant organizational capability was required in order to coordinate a mass gathering. This is no longer the case when thousands can be summoned using media that is essentially free. Consequently, mass gatherings have become devalued in political discourse and the ruling class no longer fear them. Organizational capability is necessary to press the point, through lobbying, letter-writing, policy planning, campaigning, and creating programs and services.
The threatened general strike drew its strength from both traditional organizational capability and social media reach. Unions have organizational capability in spades. And members of the public were brought in short notice using platforms such as the web, Twitter, and Facebook.
Outside support
Governments in positions of power do not easily capitulate, so pressure is needed from outside support. Countries that violate their citizen’s human rights face sanctions from other countries. The fledging United States of America benefited from materiel support from France in the War of Independence with Great Britain.
"I go to France for more funds Lafayette! I come back with more guns And ships And so the balance shifts..." --Hamilton, the Musical
The small union, the Ontario School Board Council of Unions (OSBCU), had 55,000 members. They were part of CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees) Ontario, who in turn had allies provincially and federally. A general strike would have had a lot of impact.
Estimated number of striking workers: 2.34 million
Beyond unions, and this is important, there were other sources of outside support. The federal government could have disallowed the law and Prime Minister Trudeau was critical of Bill 28, suggesting that it could happen. Premiers in other provinces, especially conservative ones, likely provided their input in back channels. They likely were concerned about the implications of a general strike in their jurisdictions. Finally, business leaders may also have weighed in. Donors and supporters to the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario are another source of pressure to avoid a general strike.
Given that the government was holding all the cards, this kind of criticism was necessary for Premier Ford to appear in a press conference on Monday morning on the second day of the strike and completely capitulate.
Premier Ford and Minister Lecce were obviously uncomfortable at the press conference. Premier Ford fumbled the opening words when reading the prepared statement from the teleprompter. He even read his answers from a teleprompter.
What’s next?
Now that we’ve stepped back from the brink of a general strike, where do we go from here?
Collective bargaining
The government needs to repeal Bill 28 and that is expected to happen next Monday (November 14) when MPPs return from a break. And they need to arrive at a contract with OSBCU. Let’s hope that it contains a fair wage and appropriate working conditions.
Unions will likely use their newfound solidarity to their advantage when bargaining other contracts. Let’s hope this means more labour peace. The first test will be the current GO Transit strike.
Minister Lecce will likely keep his job. Bill 28 was a big step and took weeks to prepare. He wasn’t a loose canon. Although we haven’t seen his ministerial mandate letter, he’s been in conflict with unions since 2018. Prior to the COVID pandemic, teachers were engaged in rotating strikes and work to rule actions.
Legislative agenda
There are other bills that are worthy of public protest, but are unlikely to receive it to the same degree. Bill 23, More Homes Built Faster Act, 2022 seeks to remove environmental protections on wetlands and allow construction on previously protected spaces. This bill reverses a 2018 election promise to not touch the greenbelt.
Source: @jamesdifiore on Twitter. Video of Doug Ford promising “Unequivocally, we won’t touch the Greenbelt.”
Regardless of your position on urban density and affordable housing, it’s not a good idea to build on flood plains during especially when global warming is bringing more extreme weather events. Will these homes even be insurable? When, not if, people are flooded out of their homes, they are going to look to government for help, both with the immediate disaster and subsequent remediation.
Bill 124 Protecting a Sustainable Public Sector for Future Generations Act, 2019 should also be repealed. The bill imposed a contract that limited wage increases to 1% on unionized and non-unionized public employees. Our health care system is currently experiencing staff shortages and long wait times due to this underfunding. This bill is under going a Charter challenge in Ontario Superior Court. Based on precedent, the challenge will likely succeed.
Unions banding together was an exceptional accomplishment. It hasn’t happened for a hundred years, roughly the same amount of time since the last pandemic. As Tom Jokinen wrote in 2019 in The Walrus,
“It was an off-script moment—that’s not the way it’s supposed to go now that labour strength and collectivity are at an ebb. But commerce sometimes forgets what happens when it backs people into a corner, as it did in 1919, when workers got their act together and shut down a city.“
Will there be another general strike here? Impossible to know. This one took an exceptional misstep by the government.
General strikes receive little coverage in traditional media, but they are happening if you look. There was one in the West Bank last week. There is one occurring in South Africa right now. There will be one in Greece tomorrow. Another is being planned in Korea for the end of the month.
France seems to have its share of general strikes and massive street protests, such as the yellow vests and farmers. I’ve read that the French are more accepting of protests, because they identify as citizens first and are more likely to act in solidarity with other citizens. This attitude hasn’t inoculated them against the same unrest as the rest of the world, but it does present another model of civic engagement. This model is a big topic, and we can get deeper into this on another day.
I’m still surprised that I called the Premier and Minister of Education and it worked. I’m not used to winning and definitely not so dramatically. Protest never works, except for when it does. The most important takeaway from this event is citizens don’t need to wait for election day to hold their government accountable. The public has been increasingly cynical and disengaged, and that’s the real problem with low voter turnout. Citizens are disconnected from their leaders, and they feel increasingly powerless and cynical when policies they don’t like are enacted.
Image of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Source: Government of Canada
Original post 2022/11/04
When I was a teenager, I had the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms on my bedroom wall. It had pride of place right next to pinups of Duran Duran and Corey Hart. As an immigrant and racialized person, it appealed to me. The idealism of everyone being equal and having the same rights made sense to my analytical mind and stood in contrast to the baffling prejudices I experienced in my daily life.
Although Canada was founded in 1867, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was patriated only in 1982. It was authored by the first ministers– the Prime Ministers and Premiers of the ten provinces. Of course, the final deal was determined by a group of white men ensconced in a room. In this case, the room where it happened was the kitchen of a conference centre.
The Prime Minister in 1982 was Pierre Trudeau, father of our current Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.
A key part of the deal was the inclusion of Section 33, the notwithstanding clause, which allows parliament, provincial or territorial legislature to declare a law to be exempt from the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It was added because provinces did not want their authority diminished. As envisioned, Section 33 would be used only in exceptional circumstances after fulsome debate about the trade offs between group and individual rights. It was a compromise– not ideal, but it got the job done. I’m confident that Charter would not have passed without it.
Yesterday, the Ontario government passed legislation to prevent a labour union from going on strike. As I wrote previously, Bill 28 preemptively invokes the notwithstanding clause. In other words, the government knew that the law violates the rights in Sections 3, 7, and 15 of the Charter, and they were going to do it anyways.
The Section 2 rights being infringed were “freedom of peaceful assembly” and “freedom of association.” Section 7 provides legal rights and “…the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.” Section 15 provides equality rights, and the protected categories are: race, national or ethnic origin; colour; religion; sex; age or mental or physical disability.
The bill was rushed through in less than a week. There was no court challenge. There was no public debate. They hadn’t even exhausted all of the mechanisms for bargaining with a union. It was just bullying. The government has crossed a line in the sand.
So you can see why a kid who was enamoured with the Charter had to show up to protest. Normally, labour negotiations are messy. If the answer was clear, the dispute would be resolved before there’s any coverage in the media. But the invocation of the notwithstanding clause changed the calculus of the dispute. Whereas percentage wage increases are negotiable, charter rights are fundamental.
If Charter Rights and Freedoms can be taken away when they are inconvenient for a government, then no one is safe.
Today’s protest included parents, children, and representatives from many unions, including 5 unions that endorsed the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario in the last election in the spring. The atmosphere was festive– there was music, an African drum circle, a conga line, and an activity tent for kids. There was a picket line around Queen’s Park and eventually traffic was stopped entirely on Queen’s Park Crescent. I saw Fred Hahn and got to talk to Laura Walton.
Forty years later, the Charter does show its age. For example, the opening sentence is: “Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law…” If we were writing the Charter today, we probably wouldn’t use this language.
More significantly, we collectively have changed. Politics is less collaborative, and more about scoring points. Disputes were more genteel in the 1980s and 1990s. It felt like parties across the political spectrum were working towards a common goal of a better Canada. We might disagree on how to get there, but at least we agreed on the project. When a right-of-centre party was elected, it didn’t feel like an existential threat. It felt like letting another member of the family choose what we were having for dinner. It sounds quaint now.
I don’t even know how to charitably describe right-of-centre parties today. It’s not just that they have different ideas about fiscal policy or the speed of social change, but rather we are living in different worlds with alternative facts, personal attacks rather than policy proposals, and different bounds of good behaviour. To be clear, I’m talking about only Canada in the current article. But this fracturing is playing out all over the world.
We probably wouldn’t be able patriate a Charter of Rights and Freedoms today. Or even amend it to remove the British monarchy as the head of state, to add protections for sexual orientation, or to remove the notwithstanding clause.
This dispute will play out in the coming days. The union called the gather today a political protest and not a strike. No one has been charged under the new law. Prime Minister Trudeau has expressed his disapproval of the law. It may be referred to the Supreme Court of Canada. Separately, a transit union has called a strike for Monday. The hashtag #generalstrike was trending on Twitter. Stay tuned.
Last month, we saw Liz Truss go over a glass cliff. She was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for a tumultuous 45 days.
A glass cliff is tendency to promote women into a leadership role during a time of crisis when there is a high risk of failure. This promotion is typically followed by spectacular and public failure.
Research on the glass cliff has focused on women, and that bias is present in this article. The findings are likely applicable to gender non-conforming individuals and members of other underrepresented groups. For instance, Truss’s successor, Rishi Sunak, is the first British Asian Prime Minister and he might be headed over the same glass cliff. In addition, an individual who is at the intersection of multiple underrepresented groups may experience a geometric increase in challenges.
Michelle K. Ryan and S. Alexander Haslam were the first to characterize the glass cliff. They found that women were more likely to be promoted during a crisis for multiple reasons.
There was strong association between female management and failing companies.
There is a perception that women have better “soft skills” which are needed during a downturn, which is a kind of benevolent sexism.
Women have fewer advancement opportunities and are more likely to accept a position with a high risk of failure.
Men protect other men from high risk positions, a phenomenon called “in-group favoritism.”
Women are viewed as more expendable.
Appointing a woman leader can signal that drastic action is being taken.
Ryan and Haslam found that 52% of men questioned the existence of a glass cliff, while only 5% of women expressed doubts.
Looking specifically at large cap tech companies, Douglas Branson wrote in his 2018 book about eight women CEOs who got the job during a crisis or downturn. (There were only an additional 4 women tech CEOs in his study who were not glass cliff hires.) As the list below shows, some women do succeed despite being hired during a crisis or downturn.
Carleton Fiorina, HP, 1999-2005. Fiorina’s time included acquisitions, layoffs, operating losses, and falling stock prices. At the end, she was forced to resign by the board.
Safra Catz, Oracle, 1999-present. During Catz’s tenure, Oracle’s market share went from over 40% to 0.41% for cloud services.
Anne Mulcahy, Xerox, 2001-2009. Mulcahy oversaw thirteen consecutive quarters of losses and a stock price drop from $10.05 to $6.82. Mulcahy was named CEO of the Year before her retirement.
Patricia Russo, Lucent Technnologies (later Alcatel), 2002-2008. Russo returned Lucent to profitability in 2004 after three years of losses and subsequently took the helm at the post-merger Lucent/Alcatel.
Carol Bartz, Yahoo!, 2009-2011. Despite making cuts to the work force, reducing costs, and restructuring the organization, Bartz wasn’t able stop the losses and take Yahoo! in a positive direction. She was removed from the role by the board.
Meg Whitman, HP, 2011-2017. After three years of losses, layoffs, and a 62% decline in stock price, Whitman broke up the iconic company.
Marissa Mayer, Yahoo!, 2012-2017. Every move that Mayer made as CEO was under the microscope, and there was a lot of second guessing in the media coverage. When she wasn’t able to turn around the Internet giant, she was dismissed by the board, following a sale to Verizon for $4.8 billion, a fraction of its peak value of $125 billion
Virginia Rometty, IBM, 2012-2020. Rometty oversaw five years of quarterly revenue declines before she retired.
Today, among Fortune 500 companies, 32 (6.4%) are women and 1 transgender woman (Sue Nabi of Coty). This group includes five in tech: Safra Catz (Oracle), Shar Dubey (Match Group), Christine Leahy (CDW), Lisa Su (AMD), and Jayshree Ullal (Arista Networks).
But in the four years since Branson’s study, I haven’t seen anything that would suggest a decrease in glass cliff promotions. The technology sector has largely been on an upswing. In the last six months, many tech companies have laid off staff and tightened budgets. We are now entering an era when tech companies are contracting, and one might occur.
Glass cliff promotions are not limited to the C-suite. To my knowledge, I’ve not had the opportunity to be a glass cliff promotion. But I have seen a woman head a death march project.
How about you? Have you experienced a glass cliff promotion? How did you cope? How did it turn out?
The Ontario Legislature is currently debating Bill 28, Keeping Students in Class Act, 2022. The purpose of the bill is to prevent education workers from going on strike and imposing a settlement on them. The worst parts of this bill are 1) preemptively invoking the notwithstanding clause of the Canadian constitution and 2) circumventing the Ontario Human Rights Code. This is no way to run a government. It’s not how the notwithstanding clause was meant to be used and human rights aren’t limited to when it’s convenient.
If you want to learn more about the labour conflict, there’s lots of material. If the government wants to put children first, the solution is easy: pay fair wages, so schools can hire and retain qualified people. Of course the government should be responsible holders of the public purse. So that means staying at the bargaining table and making reasonable offers. Not by fast-tracking legislation that a priori takes away rights.
Why shouldn’t we use the notwithstanding clause?
Section 33 of the Canadian constitution allows governments to exempt laws from the Bill of Rights. Since Sections 2 and 7-15 of the charter protects individual rights, it was felt that some kind of mechanism was needed to supersede individual rights in an exceptional circumstance after careful consideration. The Province of Québec has been a heavy user to shield their language laws. The constitution probably would not have ratified without it
Rather than ranting on social media, here are a few actions you can take. Actions at the top of the list tend to be more effective and less effort. Do one or more than one. It’s up to you.
Option 1: Contact Premier Ford, Minister Lecce and your MPP
Call Premier Ford: 416-325-1941 Call Minister Lecce: 416-325-2600
You can email too, but call is better. Premier Ford pays attention to the feedback that comes in each day and his phone is answered 24/7.
If you are just as stunned by @fordnation & @Sflecce‘s use of the Notwithstanding Clause to trample education workers’ rights, don’t just tweet. Call them.
Ford: 📞416-325-1941 Lecce: 📞416-325-2600
I am a parent. I want my child in class as much as anyone else. Not like this.” — Danyaal Raza (@DanyaalRaza) October 31, 2022
When you call, make your points and be polite. The people on the phone are just doing their jobs.
Here’s what I said.
“I’m concerned about Bill 28, Keeping Students in Class Act. It uses the notwithstanding clause of the Canadian constitution and sets aside the Ontario Human Rights Code. This is not a good law. The government should get back to the bargaining table and give education workers a fair deal. Their wages should keep up with inflation and schools should be able to hire qualified people to do the work.”
You can also contact your MPP by phone or email. You can find your MPP by using your address. If your MPP is not a Conservative, it’s less effective, but still worth doing.
I emailed using basically the same words as I did over the phone.
Option 2: Write to Prime Minister Trudeau and your MP
The federal government can disallow a law passed by a provincial government. It hasn’t been used for many years, but in the past it was used a lot. Bill 28, if it’s passed, would set a bad precedent and it’s worthwhile putting up a fight.
The Ministry of Education has a one-time program to give parents $200 per child ($250 for a special needs child) to help them “catch up” on learning gaps that came about as a result of the COVID pandemic. The program cost $365 million. As an individual parent, I can’t move the needle on three years of pandemic schooling with $200. But imagine what a teacher could do with $5400 or what an entire school could do with $140,000.
I suggest CUPE, as they will be facing fines and legal fees. Email for Interac is info@osbcu.ca. You could also donate it to an opposition party. Or your favourite teacher.
Voter turnout in the two most recent elections in Toronto reached historic lows. In the provincial election on June 2, 2022, the turnout was 48.2%, the lowest ever recorded for a provincial election. In the municipal election on October 24, 2022, the turnout was 29%, another lowest rate ever. So what’s going on here? Is it simple voter apathy, that the electorate is disengaged with politics? Or is there something else going on?
As is often the case, the answer is nuanced. Turnout was down, but it wasn’t down uniformly across candidates. Voters for incumbents came out, but voters for the other candidates stayed home. I was a campaign manager for both elections in the riding of Don Valley West/ Ward 15, and one of the key reasons that electors stayed home they didn’t feel like their voted mattered.
The graph shows the change from 2018 to 2022 in percentage points of voters for winners vs. voters for the other candidates. For the provincial election, there was a change in candidate, but the incumbent party won. In the municipal election, the incumbent candidate also won.
This decline suggests a certain fatalism among voters for non-winners. Since March 2020, we have been in survival mode. Isolation, social and physical distancing, uncertainty, and anxiety have affected our mental health. We are not sleeping well, are less patient with each other, doom scrolling through social media, binging on videos, and have less capacity for empathy. On the campaign trail, we found that people were tired, worn out by the worry of living through pandemic. Asking them to engage in big issues, such as decarbonization and disability benefit rates, was a lot when they were trying to get through the day. These electors just didn’t have in them to show up on election day and vote for a candidate who was probably going to lose.
It would be inaccurate to say that electors didn’t care. While canvassing, people definitely had their issues, such as funding for health and education, unwanted high rises in Leaside, and an unwanted rail yard in Thorncliffe Park. In the provincial election, we heard from people that would be voting strategically. They wanted their vote to make a difference in the outcome.
Now it’s your turn. Did you stay home on election day? What was your situation?
We had a successful first week of hockey. We got our legs moving at practice and had a full turnout at the game.
1. The schedule of games is available. TeamSnap invitations have not yet gone out. For your convenience, here are the times this weekend.
Practice: Saturday…
Game: Sunday…
2. I could use 1-2 volunteers to help out with practice on Saturday. The job is most pointing kids in the right direction, moving pucks around, and providing encouragement.
3. A few kids have jerseys that are too big for them. I’m looking in to getting smaller jerseys, but can’t promise that I’ll be successful. If your child’s jersey is the wrong size, can you reply to this email?
What size and number is the jersey that you have now?
What size would you like?
Do you have a jersey from another year that you can use? If so, what’s the number?
I don’t know what’s possible, so I’d like to start by figuring out the mismatches. Thanks!
So I just completed my first weekend as head coach of a hockey team. I’m so out of my depth.
The highlight of the weekend was Coach Matthew saying, “We’ll get worse before we get better.”
I made mistakes that were avoidable: I was late for practice, because I went to the wrong rink.
I made mistakes that were unavoidable: I did a bad job with the drills. I didn’t manage the duration of the shifts for the defensive line. (What’s changing “on the fly?”)
I made mistakes that I didn’t know was a mistake: I tried talking to the kids during drills. I forgot to bring pucks for warming up before the game.
To be clear, I view these mistakes as opportunities for growth, not as character flaws. And there were things I did right.
I showed up. This should not be underestimated, because lots of people didn’t volunteer.
I prepared the game sheet and delivered it on time.
I gave out mini-chocolates after practice, thereby laying the foundation for a candy bar economy.
And oh, we lost the game: 9-4. But I’m comfortable with failure, so that doesn’t bother me.
I’m hoping to only improve, but I think Coach Matthew is right. Progress isn’t linear. It’s not just learning new things, I also have to get good at the basics.
Think about learning a skill, such as playing the piano. The process of learning a piece includes a lot of repetition. The purpose of that repetition is to groove in neural pathways, by getting them to fire repeatedly. And many times during deliberate practice, we will get something wrong that previously we could do reliably. It’s not uncommon when playing a piece that we suddenly start making a mistake in the same place repeatedly. Often the solution isn’t more practice, but a change in the context of practice. These modifications could include isolating the passage, slowing the tempo, taking a break, or moving on and coming back later.
